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Elective Office

Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election over Republican nominee John McCain, 53 percent to 46 percent, with the highest voter turnout in 40 years.

Other political highlights

President of the United States, 2009-present; U.S. senator from Illinois, 2005-2008; Illinois state senator, 1996-2004.

Other career highlights

He worked as a community organizer in Chicago’s hard-knocks neighborhoods. Author. Attorney. Professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

Key Iowa allies

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was the first major Iowa politician to endorse Obama in the run-up to the 2008 Iowa caucuses.

Fundraising

Obama’s campaign is expected to raise as much as $1 billion for his re-election effort, according to some press reports. But others say he will raise about $750 million, the same as for the 2008 campaign.

By the most recent June 30 reporting date, Obama had raised $48,662,185.

Bibliography

“Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995)
“The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (2006)
“It Takes a Nation: How Strangers Became Family in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina” (2006)

Record for Obama

Kathie's take on

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama is in better shape in Iowa than before the November elections, but he faces stubborn skepticism about the direction of the country, the national budget, the economy and health care. He’s uncontested in the caucuses, of course, but Iowa is potentially a swing state in the general election. He must stay in the game here because of the spotlight on his GOP opponents. He’ll need to personally visit, not just send surrogates. Most of the Democrats’ focus in the coming months will be on trying to discredit the Republicans. But they also must work on Iowans’ pessimistic views of what generally has been a healthy economic recovery in the state. Obama’s strongest approval ratings in Iowa have centered on his work with foreign relations. He’ll have to capitalize on that, even as he finds ways to alleviate fears about the rampant budget deficit and addresses anxiety about his health-care program.

Obama is known for...

He won the Iowa Democratic caucuses on Jan. 4, 2008, with a weighted percentage of 37.6 percent of the vote. John Edwards came in second, with 29.8 percent, edging Hillary Clinton at 29.5 percent. Obama’s strategists had targeted a victory in Iowa as key to building the momentum that would carry him to the White House.

Obama is the first black president of the United States, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas. He was born in Hawaii, and as a child, he lived for several years in Indonesia.

He vaulted into the public eye as a U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois when he delivered a 17-minute speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 that called for action, unity and hope. “…There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America,” he said. He challenged the audience: “Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?”

His style has engendered criticism. Some charge he’s naive, too professorial and at times too cocky. He’s been accused of being anti-Israel and of waffling on key foreign policy decisions, such as whether to support the removal of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. But he won praise for his decisiveness in ordering an assault by Navy Seals that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee also “attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” He continues to proclaim a message of hope on a local and global scale. During a May 2011 commencement speech at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tenn., he told students, “You decided you would not be defined by where you come from but by where you want to go, by what you want to achieve, by the dreams you hope to fulfill.”